You know the poster with “Uncle Sam” pointing and declaring, “I want you for the US Army”? The picture was commissioned for World War I in 1917. It was actually a copy of one done with Lord Kitchener, Britain’s Secretary of State just three years earlier calling on Britons to join the war. It has often been noted that by some optical trick his finger seems to be pointing at you, regardless of your location in a room.

Well, the church needs you, too:

1. The church needs young men who have a passion for preaching God’s word.
2. The church needs older men who will mentor and develop them.
3. The church needs these young men to be sufficiently humble to submit to that mentoring.
4. The church needs elders who are more concerned with what the Bible says than what either society or tradition says.
5. The church needs elders who will truly shepherd the flock.
6. The church also needs elders to lead. People say they don’t like being led, but they need it.
7. The church needs members who are mature, who will not allow the petty or the inconsequential to extricate them from the church.
8. The church needs parents who speak before their children in a manner respectfully and complimentary of the church.
9. The church needs parents who demonstrate by their own actions that for them Christ’s kingdom is their priority.
10. The church needs parents who will teach their children, above all, about Christ and his people.
11. The church needs members who will attend worship, but more than that, who will play a part in serving, leading and volunteering for its programs and activities.
12. The church needs members to quit the “I love Jesus but don’t like organized religion.” It’s a cop out. What you mean is “I don’t want to put my shoulder to the wheel, I won’t help.”

Stop it. Please.

We’re in a war, one more deadly even than an earthly war. Casualties in our war are lost for eternity. Souls hang in the balance. Jesus needs you. The church needs you. Your children need you. Please volunteer to serve him.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12, ESV).

Stan Mitchell